I blame you lot.
Title: Finding Narnia
Summary: Years after the crash, Susan remembers and tells. Set after The Last Battle.
Warnings: Spoilers for anyone who hasn't read The Last Battle. Title taken from Finding Neverland. That's pretty much it.
Disclaimer: See profile.
She stared into space, unseeing.
Susan sat in her bedroom, curtains drawn to keep out the light. It had been seven years since the accident that had taken both her siblings and her parents from her, leaving her alone in the world. She had been the one to identify the mangled bodies rescued from the wreck; neither Edmund's nor her mother's had been found. When, at last, a few corpses were left unidentified, they simply handed two over to her, unsure of whom they really were.
Susan had been the one to arrange the funerals. It had been difficult to find a church available to bury 5 people in one day, but eventually she had found a pleasant, quiet one on the outskirts of Finchley. Long talks with the vicar allowed her to bury them on a Tuesday; her father had always found Tuesdays to be his favourite, being the only day he had off (apart from Sunday, the Lord's Day, of course).
She'd sat with an enthusiastic undertaker, watching as the young woman applied the finishing touches to her younger sister's features. She had done her best to try and recreate what she could from the disfigured body, and Susan had almost been able to pretend she was simply sleeping in her ebony dress; if only the gash on the right side of her face hadn't been there, where a fragment of metal rammed its way through her skull.
She greeted the mourners on the day of the wake; showing them into the lounge and watching them behold the lifeless bodies in the caskets. She had briefly imagined Peter calling her name, laughing as he did so, but found it to be a sobbing friend of the family, offering her a place to stay until she could sort herself out.
She declined.
It was cold and bitter on the day of the funeral. Susan watched, tears threatening to fall from her eyes, as they lowered the caskets into the ground, all lined up next to each other. She stayed after the ceremony, staring at the gravestones, each marked with sentimental words. She wondered if the people inhabiting her mother's and younger brother's graves were really the people the names stated, or if they would be remembered in a tomb that didn't belong to them.
It was that moment that she allowed herself to cry, and to remember. Ever since they had returned from Narnia for her last time, she had distanced herself from her siblings and tried to make sense of the memories. She couldn't allow herself to believe in such fanciful ideas if she wanted to get ahead in England, so she chose to forget that other place. She denied her past to be real, and so turned them into games and imaginative dreams, but nothing more. She chose to ignore the call she so often heard from Aslan through her siblings, and ignored her parents when they attempted to help her. She dove head first into a world of materialistic people and skin deep judgements, allowing the haunting shadows to fade to nothing.
She found herself wondering if her parents had ever known about Narnia. Had the others told them?
No, she doubted they would have. It was a secret between the four of them.
She imagined Peter protecting his siblings as the train jerked, dislodged from the rails, and how he would have been brave, had he been in her place now.
She remembered Lucy's bright personality and considered the possibility of her being unable to cope in this situation. Lord knows she grieved for a long while when she realised Tumnus had passed away.
She shuddered as she remembered what the snows of winter meant for Edmund, and how it showed her that she was now alone.
Looking down into her hands, she fingered the small dagger in her hands. How Lucy had managed to bring it back with her, Susan was unsure of, but it was the only thing she had left of her sister, and of Narnia. She called to her mind the times of the Golden Age, and she allowed herself to revel in the magnificent memories of the Great Lion, beloved of all Narnia. She remembered past dances, the wonderful dresses and the adventures she and her siblings had been on during their reign.
She thought about the recounts Edmund, Lucy, Eustace, Jill, Polly and the Professor had made of their adventures without her, surprised to recall the exact inflections and gestures of each person as they told their tales. She remembered the shining eyes and wide grins, along with the hurt expressions and tense atmospheres every time she denied the truth.
What she wouldn't give to tell them that she had lied, that she did believe.
Grasping the dagger, she got up, her resolve renewed, and left to head for her lounge.
Upon arrival, she saw her husband and greeted him with a passionate kiss and hug. He smiled softly, noting the object in her hand. She had mentioned briefly that it had belonged to her sister, and that had been enough to tell him not to bring the subject up again.
Seeing the new fire behind her dark eyes, he raised an eyebrow.
"Su, are you alright?"
She smiled softly, a great weight lifting from her shoulders. She could swear she heard a slight laugh; musical and inspiring, the laugh of Aslan himself.
"Yes. How would you like to hear a story?"
The man before her looked baffled.
"About what?"
"About a land named Narnia, cursed to be plagued by a never ending winter and ruled by an evil queen. And about four children who found themselves there one day…"
Hah. Clive equals C.S. Lewis. Wonder how he'd feel about that.
Review?
Yours,
Straitjackit.